Experts Hail Historic Nigerian Elections As Success, Note Challenges

Nigeria’s first-ever transfer of power between parties via a presidential election marks a great success April 1, according experts at two conferences April 9 in Washington, DC.

“When power alternates between parties the likelihood of coups goes down and confidence in democracy goes up,” said American University Professor Carl LeVan, speaking at a forum organized by former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin Sanders. “This will be good for competitive democracies and those other issues like security and corruption.”

Sanders, warned, however, that the newly elected President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) (shown in a file photo), “has a relatively short honeymoon” following his defeat March 31 of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the long-dominant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). “People are going to want to see how these elections [including regional elections Saturday, April 11) translate on the ground.”

Concurring with such views were four other experts convened at a separate forum, entitled, “Nigeria's Milestone Election: Assessing the Presidential Polls” and hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The panelists agreed that Buhari clearly won the election according to both official results (54%) and a “quick count” of polling (59%) by a coalition of more than 400 civic groups called the Transition Monitoring Group (TGG). A photo of voting courtesy of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung via Flickr is shown, via CSIS.

"However, the TMG's Quick Count Estimates strongly suggest that turnout was inflated during the collation process in the South South, according to a post-election statement by TMG Chairman Ibrahim Zikirullahi distributed at the CSIS conference, which featured experts from two U.S.-sponsored democracy-building groups, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.

Voting totals appeared inflated by about 10 percent in the five southern regions of the country, according to the TMG analysis. The south heavily supported Jonathan, a Christian from the South. Buhari, a former leader of the country, is a Muslim from the north.

Among the many reasons that the voting has global importance:

Nigeria is Africa's most populous and resource-rich nation. The former British colony suffers, however, from great income inequality and widespread public concerns about corruption in government, including the elections process. At the Gallup conference, the company's Regional Africa Director Jay Loschky presented polling results from 2014 showing that only 13% of Nigerians felt confident its elections would be conducted fairly, the lowest total in all of Sub-Sahara Africa. By contrast, 81% of those from Namibia expressed confidence in their voting system.

In addition, Jonathan has been widely criticized in his country for ineffectual responses to the radical Muslim Boko Haram terror group that has become notorious for kidnapping, killing, and enslaving civilians in the predominately Muslim northeastern part of the country.

On a brighter note, Jonathan (shown at left) was praised also last week for gracefully conceding the hard-fought election.

More generally, Gallup's polling showed that 91% of Nigerian believed corruption in their country was "widespread." This number ranked Nigeria as among the lowest in the world in such beliefs along with Lebanon (at 93%), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, and Lithuania virtually tied with Nigeria in public perceptions.

The former ambassador Sanders was among the international observers who visited Nigeria during the voting to help improve accuracy and public confidence. Shown in a file photo, she currently leads a Washington-based FEEEDS, a non-government organization whose acronym stands for goals in Food Security, Education, Environment-Energy, Economics, Development-Democracy, and Self Help.

She called voters the "super heroes of the elections" because they "engaged fully and turned out in record numbers." Also, she praised the leadership of the Independent Election Commission (INEC) for its leadership in a number of innovative reforms. Voters had a lengthy, 10-step process to deter fraud. Also, 1.7 million election assistants helped the process but were unable themselves to vote because of their duties, officials said. Sanders said that future elections will need to include such voters and should focus also on enabling those Nigerians living overseas to vote.

Both the FEEEDS/Gallup and CSIS conferences attracted about 80 participants. One attendee at FEEEDS/Gallup was Dr. Ade Adefuye, Nigeria's ambassador to the United States. He is shown at left in a White House photo with President Obama.

The CSIS election coverage supervised by Jennifer Cooke, shown in a file photo, is part of a series supported by the Ford Foundation to bring Nigerian officials, civil society activists, and opinion leaders to Washington, D.C. to engage with U.S. policymakers and Africa experts on how best to ensure that Nigeria's elections are peaceful, credible, and free. Details are here.

Richard Klein, the National Democratic Institute's senior director for election processes, said his analysis from polling was that Buhari should have won by about 15 percent instead of the narrower margin. However, the apparent fraud did not affect the result and may help lead to punishment that will help future elections be even more fair. He said the fraud apparently stemmed from the "collation" process of tabulating large numbers of votes, not the actual local registration, voting, and counting process scrutinized by poll watchers.

Buhari, a former general, competed unsuccessfully against Jonathan in the 2011election.

Note: This editor has performed strategic consulting series for Nigerian businesses and civic groups in the past but nothing regarding the recent election.

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Related News Coverage

2015 Elections

CSIS, Three Cheers for Nigeria, Jennifer G. Cooke (shown in a file photo), April 1, 2015. The 2015 presidential elections should be a source of pride and celebration for Nigerians of all political leanings because of what the peaceful transfer of power from one party to the other says about Nigeria’s political maturation. But, equally important, they should serve as a happy rebuke to those who would choose to see in the country only the worst possible outcomes.

Reuters via The Star, Nigeria's Buhari praises Jonathan for peaceful handover, Alexis Akwagyiram, April 1, 2015. Nigerian election winner Muhammadu Buhari (shown in a file photo) congratulated outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan for peacefully relinquishing power on Wednesday, a day after becoming the first politician in Nigeria's history to unseat a sitting leader at the ballot box. In an unprecedented step, Jonathan phoned Buhari to concede defeat and urged his supporters to accept the result, a signal of deepening democracy in Africa's most populous nation that few had expected. "President Jonathan was a worthy opponent and I extend the hand of fellowship to him," Buhari, told reporters and supporters to loud applause. The 72-year-old general, who first came to power three decades ago via a military coup, campaigned as a born-again democrat intent on cleaning up Nigeria's corrupt politics. Jonathan, wearing a hat, is also shown in a file photo.

Terror Problems

Washington Post, War-torn Nigerian town shows devastating legacy of Boko Haram, Kevin Sieff, April 11, 2015. This was once a bustling Nigerian city. Then Boko Haram took it over. Gwoza was uninhabitable by the time the militants left, and residents tell stories of rape and violence. Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau is shown in a screen shot from an October 2014 video

2011 Elections

British Broadcasting Corp., Riots break out in the northern cities of Kano and Kaduna as presidential poll results show Goodluck Jonathan is set to win, Komla Dumor, April 18, 2011. Riots have broken out across northern Nigeria as presidential poll results show Goodluck Jonathan is set to win. Homes of supporters of Mr Jonathan, the incumbent, were attacked in the cities of Kano and Kaduna. Young supporters of Muhammadu Buhari, who is popular in the north, have been clashing with police and military. They feel that the elections have been rigged in some areas of the south.

Sahara Reporters, Election 2011: Propaganda Battle Shifts To Washington, DC, As Diplomats Pressure Buhari To Halt Protesters, Site Administrator, April 20, 2011. As violence spreads and worsens in the Northern part of Nigeria in reaction to perceived irregularities in last Saturday’s presidential polls, the INEC-declared “President-elect” Goodluck Jonathan has stepped up his campaign to put a gloss of credibility on the elections. Mr. Jonathan’s handlers are focusing on selling his message to an increasingly jittery international audience. The US state department in a press statement today noted that the elections which had been widely celebrated as the freest and fairest by the Jonathan team and supporters "was far from perfect". The US government listed, "under-age" voters, violence and intimidation, ballot stuffing, and inordinately high turnout in some areas of the country" as discernible flaws of the presidential election.

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome back to OpEdNews, Jonathan. You wrote Code Red: Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century, and more recently the post-2014 edition. Why did you write this book?

Jonathan Simon: Why did Doug Flutie throw his "Hail-Mary" pass? Because the clock was running out and the end zone was a mile away.

I have been witness to and participant in more than a decade of strenuous but essentially fruitless efforts to challenge the passivity with which America has collectively accepted an "upgrade" that gave us a concealed, computerized, privatized vote counting process--a Trojan Horse which the forensic evidence we have painstakingly gathered links inextricably to a bewildering political sea change tantamount to a rolling coup. It became clear to me that a massive boost of public awareness would be essential as a foundation for the kind of determined and dramatic action needed to restore observable vote counting to our wounded democracy. CODE RED is my hail-mary pass to bring about that awareness.

I also state my purpose explicitly in Code Red, if I may quote myself:

"My goal in writing this book has been to bring the issue of vote counting, and the perils it presents in the New American Century, into the public discourse. I hope also that reading CODE RED will help those who have been keeping to themselves their suspicions, concerns, or outrage about our faith-based, man-behind-the-curtain electoral system to recognize that they are neither crazy nor alone."

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May 25

Washington Post, New electoral maps for Ohio and Michigan can wait, Supreme Court says, Robert Barnes, May 25, 2019 (print ed.). While they consider the question of partisan gerrymandering, the justices put lower-court decisions finding those states’ maps unconstitutional on hold. The Supreme Court on Friday put on hold lower-court decisions that said Ohio and Michigan had to come up with new electoral maps because of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.

The decision was not surprising, because the justices are currently considering whether judges should even have a role in policing partisan gerrymandering. There were no noted dissents in the orders for either state.

The Supreme Court in March heard arguments in similar cases from North Carolina, where judges found that Republicans had manipulated congressional maps to their advantage, and from Maryland, where Democratic lawmakers redrew a district that resulted in a loss for a longtime Republican congressman.

While the Supreme Court regularly examines redistricting plans for signs of racial gerrymandering, it has never found a state’s plan so infected with partisan politics that it violates the rights of voters. The decision in the North Carolina and Maryland cases are expected before the end of June.

With the decisions from Ohio and Michigan, federal courts in five states have struck down maps as partisan gerrymanders. The courts in the Ohio and Michigan decisions ordered the states to come up with new maps that could be used in the 2020 elections.

May 24

UK's May Will Leave June 7

New York Times, Theresa May, Undone by Brexit, Will Step Down as Prime Minister, Stephen Castle, May 24, 2019. Mrs. May said she would resign after almost three years of trying and failing to lead Britain out of the European Union. Her departure is likely to set off a vicious contest to succeed her within the governing Conservative Party. Facing a cabinet rebellion, Theresa May announced on Friday morning her decision to leave office. She spoke briefly after meeting with Graham Brady, a powerful leader of backbench Conservative lawmakers.

Standing in front of 10 Downing Street, Mrs. May, shown in a file photo at right, said it was in the “best interests of the country for a new prime minister” to lead Britain through the Brexit process. She announced plans to step down as the leader of the Conservative Party on June 7, with the process to replace her beginning the following week.

“I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide. I have done my best to do that,” she added. “I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so.”

Conservative lawmakers have been deeply frustrated by Mrs. May’s failure to deliver on Brexit, which became the government’s central — some would say its sole — preoccupation after the country voted to leave the union in a 2016 referendum.

But the breaking point has come at an awkward moment, with President Trump scheduled to arrive in Britain on June 3 for a state visit and to take part in events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings that preceded the end of World War II.

Trump Empowers Barr for "Spying" Probe

New York Times, Trump Gives Attorney General Sweeping Power in Review of 2016 Campaign Inquiry, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, May 24, 2019 (print ed.). The directive gives Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation. President Trump took extraordinary steps on Thursday to give Attorney General William P. Barr, right, sweeping new authorities to conduct a review into how the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia were investigated, significantly escalating the administration’s efforts to place those who investigated the campaign under scrutiny.

In a directive, Mr. Trump ordered the C.I.A. and the country’s 15 other intelligence agencies to cooperate with the review and granted Mr. Barr the authority to unilaterally declassify their documents. The move — which occurred just hours after the president again declared that those who led the investigation committed treason — gave Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation.

The order is a change for Mr. Trump, who last year dropped a plan to release documents related to the Russia ...

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